CapX 2020 transmission is in the news again:

Power substation won’t eat up 20 acres of Holmen TIF district

By ADAM BISSEN Special to the Tribune | Posted: Saturday, May 22, 2010 12:00 am

HOLMEN - Holmen won’t lose 20 acres in the middle of its tax increment finance district to a power substation.

Xcel Energy officials have decided against using the site as part of its CapX2020 power line project, Village President Nancy Proctor told the village board.

The village is working on editing the master plan for the 7 Bridges Tax Increment District, 941 acres on the village’s north side surrounding Hwys. 53 and 35.

The board has assigned the village’s Economic Development Committee to shepherd development of the district. One of the committee’s first steps will be fine-tuning a $17,000 Schreiber/Anderson Associates market study village trustees consider unsatisfactory because of map errors and other issues.

The village plans to spend more than $20 million to bring sewers, roads and other infrastructure to the TIF district. Taxing jurisdictions, including the village, school district and county, will continue to collect taxes on the base value of the property in the TIF district. But as development occurs, taxes on the increased value of the property will be used to repay infrastructure costs.

Schreiber/Anderson’s master plan suggests native grasses be maintained and roads follow natural swales in the district, but private landowners are not obligated to follow those suggestions.

“We can’t dictate that that’s the way it would have to be, but it would look nice,” Proctor said.

From Pine Island, here’s their update:

CapX 2020 Scoping Process Update - May 17, 2010

And from the Zumbrota News Record:

May 20 deadline for submitting suggestions on CapX2020 project

CANNON FALLS - The Minnesota Office of Energy Security (MOES) is holding meetings to get public comment about the proposed CapX 2020 high voltage transmission line that may come down Highway 52 from a proposed new substation in Hampton to a proposed new substation in the Pine Island area before heading to Alma, Wisconsin.

The City of Zumbrota has asked that the power line be diverted to the west, off of Highway 52 from County Road 7 past Zumbrota, before it returns to the highway so that it does not intefere with future city development.

On May 5 there was a meeting in Pine Island. One woman asked if wind companies could hook onto the transmission line and she was told that they could. More information about the meeting can be found in the Pine Island EDA update in this edition of the paper.

On May 6 a meeting was held in Cannon Falls where there was discussion about diverting the line away from the Highway 52/19 interchange. That is because MnDot requests that power lines go around and not through interchanges.

To divert the line around the interchange would mean that it would come very close to businesses like Sandstrom Auto and Truck Repair, St. Paul’s Lutheran Church and School, and a number of residences. Those who would be affected by the change voiced their concerns and asked if an alternative route could be considered.

Matt Langan, permit manager with MOES said that MnDot sometimes grants hardship routing variances if the hardship can be proven. The result would be a change of the proposed route. He told those with concerns to write detailed comments about why they want the line diverted away from their property and to submit detailed alternative routes.

Comments and suggestions from all citizens who are affected by the Hampton to Alma portion of the CapX 2020 project will be accepted until May 20.

Detailed maps of the proposed preferred route and an alternative proposed route are available at capx2020.com and at energy facilities.puc.state.mn.us [click "Search Documents" and search for docket 09-1448 (admin comment)].

Comments can be submitted to matthew.langan@state.mn.us. or at 85 7th Place East, Suite 500, St. Paul, MN, 551010-2198.

Tomorrow morning at 10:30, Gov. Tim Pawlenty, promoter of CapX 2020 transmission, will be in Plainview, at the Hassler Theater.

He needs a welcoming committee.

Gov. Tim Pawlenty

Thursday, April 29, 2010 @ 10:30-11:30 a.m.

Hassler Theater - Main Street

Plainview, MN

Be there or be square!

UPDATE: Strangely biased and TWICE removed!  Curiouser and curiouser — the two articles below have been pulled by the STrib, but not quick enough to prevent posting here, and tradingcharts.com and istockAnalyst:

news.tradingcharts.com/futures/1/2/138012521.html

www.istockanalyst.com/article/viewiStockNews/articleid/4018919

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Today’s STrib has an article that presents CapX 2020 transmission with a narrow focus on just one little piece of a 600+ mile transmission line:

Mammoth high-voltage line alarms residents

As landowners worry about the $1.7 billion CapX2020 project, officials say expanding the power grid is necessary.

By JENNIFER BJORHUS, Star Tribune

April 10, 2010 - 6:14 PM

Like most people, Eric Johnson never really thought much about transmission lines.

But now that a high-voltage power line threatens to dwarf his Dakota County home, he thinks about it every day.

The inch-thick aluminum and steel cable draped on steel poles some 10 stories high has become a nightly topic for Johnson and his wife, Kristen, who worry about health issues and raising their three young children so close to the 345-kilovolt line. They fear it will force them to abandon their home — and their life savings.

“This is all we have,” said Eric, a grounds maintenance contractor.

The Johnsons are among thousands of Minnesotans in the path of CapX2020, one of the most ambitious expansions of Minnesota’s transmission grid ever. The $1.7 billion project will add 700 miles of overhead wires capable of moving 4,500 megawatts of electricity, expanding the grid by about 30 percent. Work is to begin later this year.

State energy officials and utility regulators say the expansion is necessary. An increasingly wired population and growth in areas such as St. Cloud and Rochester have created bottlenecks they fear will only worsen as the economy recovers.

Even so, opposition from those in the path of CapX2020 has grown. While the knitting together of the nation’s Balkanized grid may be an inevitability, CapX2020 offers a sneak preview of the painful ground-level realities. Wires will cross people’s yards and farmland. They make noise and affect property values. The higher voltages needed to move power long distances raise safety questions for those living near them.

“Would you feel comfortable living under lines like that?” asked Percy Scherbenske, a Thoroughbred horse breeder in Hampton who’s worried that the CapX2020 line that could run past his barn would put him out of business.

How much success they’ll have fighting the utilities remains uncertain. State lawmakers are working on legislation to hold utilities to a higher standard — the same as governments — when it comes to taking private land for projects.

Alfred Marcus, a management professor at the University of Minnesota, said Minnesota, and the nation, needs a new way to help utilities and landowners negotiate impasses or stalemates could stifle economic progress.

“There’s an institutional void around this issue,” Marcus said. “Nobody has the incentive to say come, on, let’s sit down.”

Remembering Bolt Weevils

Many Minnesotans remember the last era of big transmission investments. The late 1970s were marked by violent protests over the line from the lignite coal fields of North Dakota to the Twin Cities.

Activists smeared themselves with manure. An anonymous group, calling themselves the “Bolt Weevils,” reportedly shot out nearly 10,000 insulators and toppled 14 towers. A young professor at Carleton College, Paul Wellstone, co-authored a book about it: “Powerline: The First Battle of America’s Energy War.”

Utilities now go through a more rigorous approval process with regulators. CapX2020 has tried to route the lines down existing roads and field lines instead of cutting directly across them. Still, battles continue.

From his office high in the former World Trade Center in downtown St. Paul, Bob Johnson spends his days handling investment funds in commercial real estate. He’s an unlikely power line activist, but he and his wife, Patricia, have backed a costly campaign — they won’t say how much, but estimates are close to six figures — against the CapX project. One leg of CapX would run past their hilltop home along a country road called 220th Street East outside Hampton.

The 240-mile line from Brookings, S.D., to Hampton won’t jeopardize their views or land, the Johnsons say, but they think 220th Street East is a lousy choice because it affects a disproportionate number of people and businesses, including one of the country’s largest Cambodian Buddhist temples and Scherbenkse, the horse breeder.

They’ve proposed an alternate route about a mile north that would mostly cross farmland. The farmers there don’t want the power line, either.

To bolster his case, Johnson flew in experts to testify at a December hearing; among them was David Carpenter, director of the Institute for Health and the Environment at the University of Albany in New York. Carpenter testified that there’s a link between exposure to magnetic fields above 4 milligauss and increased risk of cancer, particularly childhood leukemia.

Someone standing 100 feet away from a 345-kilovolt line would be exposed to a calculated average of 3.4 to 12.5 milligauss, depending on the exact spot and whether one or two circuits are operating.

Utilities brought in their own experts, arguing that the health risks from power lines are hypothetical. The average Sonicare toothbrush generates magnetic fields of some 240 milligauss, they argue, while acknowledging people don’t live with a toothbrush in their mouths.

Dropping demand

The Brookings line isn’t the only leg of the CapX under fire. Dropping energy demand has a trio of citizen groups, including a group of south metro landowners called the Citizens Energy Task Force, asking the state Public Utilities Commission (PUC) to re-examine the need for the line from Hampton to La Crosse, Wis., which would cross the Mississippi through a national wildlife refuge.

When the utilities pitched CapX to regulators in 2005, they projected energy demand in Minnesota and neighboring states would grow about 2.49 percent a year through 2020, or by about 6,300 megawatts total, according to the group’s appeal filed in October with the State Court of Appeals.

Since the recession, demand has been dropping, and CapX utilities have cut individual forecasts. Great River Energy is now planning for a 1.28 percent annual growth rate through 2020. The CapX group as a whole, however, hasn’t revised its official demand forecast.

The Citizens Energy Task Force thinks they should.

“The utilities are asking for a very big, very expensive network that’s more disruptive than it needs to be,” said the group’s attorney, Paula Maccabee.

The utilities argue that electricity demand will inevitably rebound. Both the PUC and an administrative law judge have agreed that new lines are needed, they said.

A hearing on the issue was held at the court of appeals last month. A decision is pending.

A fair price

How much landowners will be compensated remains unclear. Under eminent domain, utilities can lawfully seize and condemn private land for their projects — at a fair price — but they try to settle with landowners first, getting them to sign an easement agreement and take a check.

Most landowners sign such agreements fairly quickly, something Xcel Energy and Great River Energy point to as evidence that they deal fairly with landowners.

Tracking the private offers is difficult. Lawyers who’ve worked with property owners say utilities frequently squeeze landowners, lowballing them on initial offers or not including the impact the power line has on their property value.

“It’s a David and Goliath battle, only it’s David without a rock and a sling,” said Bryan Voight, one of eight homeowners in Dakota County that battled Great River Energy over a new power line a few years ago and won. The utility initially offered him $250 to $500 for running a line across his front yard. The group eventually settled for amounts far higher.

Craig Poorker, a land rights manager with Great River Energy and CapX, said that the utility does not include the impact on property values in easement offers. He called the Voight situation an “anomaly.”

Trying to ensure landowners are treated fairly as CapX looms, Minnesota lawmakers are seeking to tighten eminent domain laws as they apply to utilities. Among other things, they want utilities to pay attorneys fees for landowners who were lowballed. Voight said he paid one-third of his award to his attorney.

In Hampton, Eric and Kristen Johnson say they just want to be treated fairly, too. A decision on the basic route of the Brookings power line is expected by summer. The line could end up 300 to 500 feet away from their house, Poorker said. The Johnsons said the jog away from their house might even be worse, because then the utilities might not have to compensate them at all.

“It’s still too close,” said Kristen Johnson. “We’re talking 150-foot towers that make lots of noise.”

For now, they wait.

“We’re just kind of sitting here in limbo,” said Kristen. “It’s scary.”

Jennifer Bjorhus • 612-673-4683

Not only is the focus so narrow, but NoCapX 2020 and United Citizens Action Network don’t exist… sigh…

And the point of the eminent domain law is misstated:

State lawmakers are working on legislation to hold utilities to a higher standard — the same as governments — when it comes to taking private land for projects.

and:

Trying to ensure landowners are treated fairly as CapX looms, Minnesota lawmakers are seeking to tighten eminent domain laws as they apply to utilities.

Ummmmmm… the point of the legislative changes isn’t “to hold utilities to a higher standard” or to “tighten eminent domain laws as they apply to utilities,” it’s to require utilities to follow the same laws as every other entity with eminent domain, to not receive favored treatment — EXEMPTION — from eminent domain laws.  GRRRRRRRRRR…

And nothing at all about the people in Marshall who fought so hard to get a Citizen Advisory Task Force and were dissed by Minnesota Office of Energy Security:

MOES answers Marshall malfeasance/misfeasance charges

And there’s another one too:

Minneapolis Star Tribune 4/9/10

POWERING UP: Wiring the state for the next generation

Blueprints for thousands of miles of new power lines to carry wind are sparking debate over the nation’s clean energy future.

By JENNIFER BJORHUS, Star Tribune

April 9, 2010 - 5:59 PM

Minnesota, beset by an aging and overused power grid, is losing its edge in the wind industry just as the rest of the country is ready to embrace it.

But if President Obama and some of the country’s largest wind developers have their way, the state’s gusts could someday soon help power homes in Chicago and further east.

Developers are still drawing up blueprints, with multibillion pricetags, that crisscross Minnesota with networks of gigantic transmission lines to ship wind power east. President Obama spurred the planning, making the electric superhighway — the energy equivalent of the country’s interstate highways — a key plank of his clean energy agenda. Recently, governors of 29 states, including Gov. Tim Pawlenty, pushed Congress to pass a national renewable energy standard requiring 20 percent of electricity from renewable sources, largely wind, by 2020.

Huge power line plans, however, have sparked sharp debate over who controls the nation’s energy future. Like the paths of the wires themselves, battle lines are still being drawn. Environmentalists are grudgingly embracing some of the green plans despite all the development they entail, citing the urgency of shifting from dirty coal-fired electricity. Minnesota companies that stand to benefit are pushing for the potentially large export crop. But a national group of utilities, many from the East, came out this month saying they don’t want Midwest wind, preferring to encourage local development.

Some Minnesotans agree. The state should meet its own renewable energy goals — 25 percent of its electricity from renewables by 2025 — not by exporting wind but harvesting it for its own use with smaller lines, they argue.

Ratepayers inevitably will get socked with bills lasting decades for building new transmission lines, but no one can agree on how to fairly spread out the costs.

Despite sky-scraping pricetags on the backs of taxpayers and ratepayers, debates over the large-scale transmission buildouts around the country remain largely invisible to the general public, said Bruce Edelston, who heads the newly formed Coalition for Fair Transmission Policy in Washington, D.C.

“It’s probably the biggest issue out there that the average person on the street has no idea of,” Edelston said.

To see the state’s power stalemate firsthand, look no further than the St. Paul control room that manages the electric grid. Staring at a bank of computers beneath a 12-foot-high screen of blinking lights, a dispatcher will see that the lines are getting jammed and order a wind farm operator to turn off turbines.

Last year dispatchers ordered farms in Minnesota and nearby states to “dump wind” 6,000 times, according to the Midwest Independent System Operator (Midwest ISO), which runs the million-square-mile electrical grid over 13 states, including Minnesota, plus the province of Manitoba.

The calls come when it’s windiest. There just aren’t enough power lines, said Clair Moeller, the group’s vice president of transmission management.

And it has ambitious wind developers up in arms.

“We’re literally feathering our blades … while others continue to generate with coal,” says Don Furman, an executive at Iberdrola Renewables Inc., the U.S. arm of the Spanish wind giant that owns several farms in Minnesota. “Where we are right now is pretty contrary to where the administration and most of the public wants to be going.”

Minnesota has about 150 wind projects waiting in line at the Midwest ISO to plug into the grid. Some have waited since 2005.

Meanwhile the state’s status as a wind energy leader is languishing. As recently as 2007, Minnesota was the country’s third-largest wind producer. By last year it had fallen to fifth. Last year 20 states each added more than 100 megawatts of new wind power. Minnesota added just 56. In each of the two previous years, the state had added more than 400 megawatts of new power.

Meanwhile, Minnesota imports nearly a quarter of its electricity, putting it near the top in the country.

There are so many stalled wind projects in Minnesota that if they were all hooked up, the state could probably triple its renewable energy goal of 25 percent. The state appears to be on track to hit the 2010 target of 15 percent for Xcel Energy and 7 percent for all other electric utilities.

Renewable Energy Systems is waiting to hook up three projects, said Joe DeVito, who works in the Colorado company’s Minneapolis office.

“It’s a been a slow and painful process,” DeVito said. “I just don’t think we’re going to take any more positions in this region because of the difficulty of the queue.”

DeVito said his company will likely build in Oregon or Colorado instead.

The state’s energy regulator, the Public Utilities Commission, and its top utilities argue that Minnesota has simply maxed out the spiderweb of power lines hanging over the state. It hasn’t expanded its grid significantly in nearly 30 years.

At peak times, lines jam around St. Cloud, Alexandria, Rochester and La Crosse, Wis., raising the threat of outages and leaving the system vulnerable to a bad storm.

“The existing system capacity is essentially used up,” said Priti Patel, director of regional transmission development at Minneapolis-based Excel Energy, and a co-director of CapX2020, the state’s major power line expansion that’s been years in the planning.

The first phase of CapX2020, expected to break ground later this year, would add about 700 miles of high-voltage lines across Minnesota and part of Wisconsin at a cost of about $1.7 billion. The second phase is undetermined. Among other things, utility officials wait to see whether there’s an export market.

Big plans, big costs

Last October at a solar facility in Florida, Obama stumped for a clean energy superhighway in which “a wind farm in rural South Dakota can power homes in Chicago.”

Three plans do just that. At the moment, the $12 billion Green Power Express is furthest along. It would be a 3,000-mile network of 765-kilovolt lines across the Dakotas, Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana. It’s backed by ITC Holdings Corp., a publicly traded transmission company in Novi, Mich. Federal regulators boosted the project last year when they granted it a guaranteed 12.38 percent return on investment.

To DeVito, even that project isn’t big enough. “The need is actually larger if we want to really tap renewable energy.”

American Electric Power in Columbus, Ohio, and MidAmerican Energy Holdings in Des Moines, Iowa, are pushing another electric superhighway that would cross Minnesota. A study is due out in April.

And the Midwest ISO itself just proposed several different configurations of high-voltage lines stretching from the Dakotas to Illinois to meet mandates for renewable energy. The pricetag: between $12 billion and $22 billion.

Any of the proposed lines crossing Minnesota would be subject to approval by state regulators.

But who pays? The Midwest ISO recently announced it’s devised a method for sharing transmission costs between power generators hooking up to new lines and ratepayers throughout its far-flung grid based on a formula for their power use. It’s still hammering out details.

“We’re watching it like a hawk,” said Peter Fox-Penner, principal at the Brattle Group, an economic consulting firm in Cambridge, Mass. Spreading the cost is “without any question, the biggest bottleneck in this acceleration.”

Go it alone

Not everyone is sold on electric superhighways. The governors of several Northeast states and a growing number of utilities are pushing back on plans to import cheap Midwest wind power, concerned it will squelch local development.

“It skews the market toward the remote resources,” said Edelston, who heads the utility opposition.

Others argue the entire interstate transmission concept is wrong. David Morris, a vice president at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance in Minneapolis, says Minnesotans “may be forced to pay billions to build almost 2,000 miles of high-voltage transmission lines that will benefit Minnesota little, if at all,” he said.

His group thinks Minnesota’s energy future should focus not on big wires to haul power long distances, but on small ones supporting grass-roots projects. He points to countries such as Denmark and Germany where small renewable energy projects have taken a significant bite out of overall use. Wind generates about 20 percent of Denmark’s electricity, the bulk of it owned by farmers and cooperatives.

Green town

Some 20 stories high, the sleek white machine on the edge of Mountain Lake towers over a gas station and the town’s golf course.

The single turbine, built about three years ago, generates about 16 percent of the electricity used by this town of about 2,000 people in southwestern Minnesota.

Besides trying to be green, one goal was to control swings in electricity prices — avoiding so-called spot market purchases, said City Administrator Wendy Meyer. Its wind power has a cost slightly less than the average of the town’s total electricity mix, which includes electricity from Nebraska. But wind prices won’t change, while electricity from other sources will inevitably increase.

“It’s a huge futures contract,” said wind developer Dan Juhl, who helped the town build it at a cost of $2 million.

Meyer said her town won’t ever become completely energy self-sufficient. Wind is famously intermittent. “You can’t put up 100 percent wind turbines,” she said. “You still need something.”

Indeed, Beth Goodpaster, a staff attorney at the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy, said to wean the nation from coal requires approaches from all angles, one reason her group offered reluctant support for CapX2020. “We think we do need to do it all.”

Jennifer Bjorhus • 612-673-4683

Well DUH, to transmit the unneeded coal-generated electricity to market to “displace natural gas.”

ICF - MISO Benefits Analysis Study

A storm is brewing over South Heart, North Dakota.  The South Heart coal plant and mine is in the news.

First the “benefication” plant, essentially drying out the wet lignite coal, almost exactly ONE YEAR AGO:

North Dakota Coal Dealt Setback

Great Northern Power Development withdrew its application for a new coal mine near South Heart, North Dakota. The company said it acted in response to a complaint filed at the North Dakota Public Service Commission by Plains Justice on behalf of Dakota Resource Council and local landowners. The complaint challenges the construction of a new coal preparation plant.

Now the coal plant — It was first touted as a “synfuels” plant (a la Beulah, argh, brilliant idea…) and now electricity, now that CapX 2020 permits are being approved.

Great Northern and Allied Syngas Stick with South Heart

South Heart is west of Dickinson, in the middle between the north and south CapX 2020 Dakota extensions:

Company seeks coal permit

Published March 31 2010

By: Ashley Martin, The Dickinson Press

A Houston company has taken another step toward their goal of constructing a $1.5 billion power plant and surface coal mine on 4,600 acres near South Heart.

South Heart Coal LLC, which is owned by Great Northern Power Development, applied for a mining permit Monday.

North Dakota’s Public Service Commission will review the application, said Jim Deutsch — director of PSC’s reclamation division.

It will take at least six months to process the application, he said.

“The application is for about 2.4 million tons of coal a year,” said Neal Messer, spokesperson for Great Northern.

Britt Huggins, whose home is just a few miles away from the proposed mine and plant, said the project makes her nervous.

“I have horses, I have dogs and I don’t so much like the idea of tearing up the countryside,” Huggins said. “Plus, what’s it going to do to our wildlife and our water?”

She is selling her home, but is having issues because it’s so close to the proposed mine.

“I’ve already had people look at it and say they’re worried about that coal mine,” Huggins said. “If it goes through, it’s going to change everybody’s way of life out there.”

The plant will be about six miles southwest of South Heart and the mine will be about three miles west of

the town, Messer said.

“It’s the biggest economic project in southwest North Dakota’s history,” Messer said.

Over 90 percent of the carbon dioxide emitted from the plant will be captured and used in other markets, Messer said. He added the company will comply with the Environmental Protection Agency’s standards.

“This plant will have no problem meeting or exceeding any of those standards,” Messer said.

The plant will use technology to gasify the coal and extract hydrogen, which will be used to generate 175 megawatts of electricity, Messer said. That’s enough to power 140,000 homes, he added.

Construction is set to begin in the fall of 2011 and they hope to be operational by 2014, Messer said. The project will create about 1,100 temporary jobs and 350 permanent jobs, Messer said.

Great Northern has also requested the land be rezoned from agricultural to industrial. The Stark County Zoning Board will hold a public hearing for the request Monday at 4 p.m.

The zoning board and Stark County commission approved the property to be rezoned about two years ago. However, a district judge overturned the decision because officials did not follow proper procedures.

Great Northern planned to produce synthetic natural gas two years ago, but changed their mind, Messer said.

“What happened was the natural gas market has deteriorated where that is not a profitable function at this point,” Messer said.

Messer expects Great Northern to apply for an air quality permit within the next few months.

Pete Kuntz, Stark County commissioner, said the project will be good for the area.

“We’ve got to look out for the majority of the people in the county, not only a few,” Kuntz said. “There’s way more people for than against.”

The coal would be mined by removing earth above the coal vein and stockpiling it, Messer said. Once the coal is removed, the earth will be replaced and put back to as close to its original state as possible, he added.

The mine would last about 30 years and the market will determine what happens to the plant after that, Messer said.

“If everything is the same as it is now, then they would go and try to find areas to expand,” Messer said.

GTL Energy USA Ltd. is constructing a coal beneficiation plant less than a half a mile away from Great Northern’s proposed project.

Messer, who is the spokesperson for Great Northern and GTL, said while they are two separate companies, Great Northern will use GTL Energy’s technology to make their plant more efficient.

IT PASSED IN THE HOUSE — THE FULL HOUSE!  Now on to finish up in the Senate.

Thanks to Rep.  David Bly for authoring HF 1182, to remove the eminent domain law exemptions for public service corporations — our “good neighbor” utilities who thought they were special.  Thanks also to the other co-authors  Falk ; Paymar ; Buesgens ; Brod ; Morrow ; Drazkowski ; Haws

Here’s Bly’s press release — and kudos to Russ Martin, United Citizens Action Network, for all his work, all Judy’s work… and then there’s Joyce Osborn too!  Anyway, the press release:

NEWS RELEASE
BLY PROTECT RIGHTS OF HOMEOWNERS FROM EMINENT DOMAIN

Bipartisan legislative victory passes 123 to 5

ST. PAUL – Legislation authored by Rep. David Bly (DFL - Northfield) passed the House today that would increase fairness and balance for Minnesota homeowners whose land may be taken through eminent domain process. Passed on a wide bipartisan vote of 123 to 5, Bly’s bill repeals the special exemptions for eminent domain given to utility companies involving high-voltage transmission lines and natural gas and petroleum pipelines. Bly called the bill a victory for private property rights for all Minnesotans.

“A constituent of mine named Russell Martin came to me in 2008 when he found out an oil pipeline was going to be built across his land. A year later he found out the CAPX 2020 powerline was sited to cross his property. I began hearing from other property owners across the state on this issue and drafted the current bill,” said Bly. “This bill will protect homeowners like Russell who deserve to have a fair process when they are put in this unfair position.”

After United States Supreme Court broadened the ability of government to use eminent domain in 2005, the Minnesota Legislature took action to limit the power of state government to use eminent domain in order to protect and increase fairness to property owners. However, as part of those changes, “public service corporations” (PSC) were exempted from the new regulations and restrictions. Bly said this exemption has created a paradox in state law that is unfair to Minnesota property owners.

“If a non-profit entity like the state government wants to use your land for a public park, you have far more protections than if a for-profit utility company wants to run a high-voltage power line through your property,” said Bly. “In the interest of fairness to Minnesota’s property owners, we are simply holding these specific utility companies to the same standard we hold our own government.”

This legislation is a direct response to the proposed CapX 2020 line that is moving forward that will affect many regions of the state. The CapX 2020 line will go from Brookings to Hampton affecting Minnesotans in Lincoln County in the west through, Scott, Rice, Dakota and Goodhue counties and points south toward the Wisconsin border.

“The CapX 2020 power lines are moving forward as we speak and it’s critical we ensure that the rights of Minnesota property owners are protected,” said Bly.

The Minnesota Senate is expected to act on a similar bill soon at which point it will be sent to the Governor for his signature.

Here’s what Rep. Steve Drazkowski has to say about it — he wouldn’t co-author last year, but this year, with all the constituents calling, his name is on it — this is from his email blurb (I omitted the part about the federal health care bill, sorry, but my stomach just cannot abide by his rant):

Over the past year in southeastern Minnesota, property owners have been dealing with the uncertainties brought forward by the development of the CapX2020 project and the plans for the development of a 345 Mhz high powered transmission line.  The proposed route runs right through house district 28B.  From the outset, there were two items that I have communicated my commitment to doing to help limit the impact that this line would have on private property rights in our district.

The first was to work with government agencies, the CapX consortium, and other legislators to encourage the selection of a route that maximized the use of existing corridors and minimized the impact on private property.  At this point, it appears that our work has paid off, as the proposed route uses existing corridors to a high degree, and the impact on private property should be minimized.

The second goal was to have eminent domain reform passed into law - so that the very same eminent domain restrictions applied to utilities as it does to local units of government.  This will ensure that when property is taken for utility projects like CapX, that property owners are placed in the very best position to ensure fair and honest compensation from the utility company.  I am happy to report that this afternoon, HF1182, a bill that I co-sponsored - and a bill that accomplishes the eminent domain reforms that our state lacks, passed the House Floor a vote of 123-5!  I am confident that the senate companion will also pass, that we will get a favorable conference committee report, and that the bill will be signed into law very soon.

Now, everyone call the Governor and let him know that we expect him to sign that bill when it lands on his desk.  Oh, but wait, he’s not there… where is he campaigning these days…

Changes at Silver Lake trim wintering goose numbers

1/8/2010

By Christina Killion Valdez
Post-Bulletin, Rochester MN

It’s probably a good thing that Rochester’s emblematic Canada geese come equipped with goose down coats. In addition to bitterly cold temperatures this winter, lower energy usage in Rochester means the Silver Lake Power Plant isn’t helping to keep the lake warm either.

“Last year when you would drive by you would see pieces of the lake open because of the water we discharge back into the lake,” said Tony Benson, Rochester Public Utilities spokesman. “This year you really don’t.

“It’s not a real good situation,” he said. “Unfortunately, the energy market just isn’t there. There just isn’t the demand.”

While some of the decrease comes from energy conservation, with RPU customers conserving 16 million kilowatts of power in 2009, much of it is due to the economy, Benson said.

“Some businesses changed from two shifts to one shift and don’t have machinery and systems running as much,” he said.

Also, as a member of the Southern Minnesota Municipal Power Agency, RPU is contracted to purchase up to 216 megawatts of power each day, which is more than what’s needed on a typical winter day, Benson said. On Thursday, for example, RPU used about 170 megawatts of power, he said.

Occasional plumes of smoke are still seen coming out of the coal-powered plant, though, as RPU keeps a boiler running to provide steam through its contract with Mayo Clinic. It’s not enough to keep the lake open.

What that means for the geese is a move downstream.

A count earlier this week showed roughly 8,500 geese just below the Silver Lake dam, said Don Nelson, area wildlife supervisor for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.

That continues a downward trend from 10,000 to 20,000 geese that wintered on the lake as recently as five years ago, he said.

A number of changes — not keeping the lake open, moving the food plots, habitat work around the edge of the lake — have contributed to the feathered population electing to fly past Rochester and on to Missouri and southern Illinois, he said.

Especially this year.

“Even that water by the dam is more frozen than I’ve seen it,” Nelson said. “There are still areas of open water that the geese are using, but they are really stacked in there. If, first thing in the morning, you walk along the path at U.S. 63 North, you’ll see wall-to-wall geese.”

Here are two posts that show what can happen…

Three lines are now in various stages of withdrawal, suspension and delay, they’re the three that PJM proposed as its
“backbone” 500kV transmission.  It’s theirdream to move large amounts of coal generated electricity to New York, but of course they’re never stating that purpose.  We got a lot of good information into the record about lack of demand, the PJM reports demand tanking in a couple of ways, their “PJM State of the Market Report” and also their just released “PJM 2010 Load Forecast” and there’s no way of getting around it — transmission lines are not NEEDED.

Here’s a couple of posts from Legalectric about Friday’s BPU decision to delay:

Susquehanna-Roseland delay in the news

DELAY - Susquehanna-Roseland live from the BPU

Least you think I’m sleeping at the switch, head on over to Legalectric.org for some pretty exciting news in transmission.  Three big projects are collapsing out east, PATH, MAPP, and Susquehanna-Roseland… it’s pretty damn cool, whew!  It looks like they may go down.  Please oh please oh please…

In reverse chronological order:

In the Marshall Independent:

Being heard on CapX

By Deb Gau
POSTED: December 3, 2009

MARSHALL - A second public hearing on the proposed CapX 2020 power line project drew a larger crowd than the first one in November and public testimony Tuesday, as area residents brought concerns about the project to an administrative law judge.

During one portion of the hearing Tuesday afternoon, more than 40 people were in attendance.

Concerns voiced as testimony ranged from the safety and proposed routes of the transmission lines, especially near the city of Ghent, to a lack of notification of proposed route changes in rural Minneota and Ghent.

Testimony from the hearing, presided over by administrative law judge Richard Luis, will factor in the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission’s selection of a route for the project.

Area residents who spoke during one part of the hearing said they were opposed to the lines passing near their homes.

Ordell Severson of rural Minneota said he was concerned about a portion of the route that would pass near his property along Lyon Lincoln Road.

“It feels like there’s got to be a better place to put it,” Severson said.

“I would like to echo the (concern about) proximity to homes,” said Dan Wambeke of rural Marshall.

Craig Poorker of Great River Energy responded that the planners of the CapX project were working with state criteria for placement of the lines. Those criteria included avoiding residences, he said.

An alternative route proposal that would pass close to the southern and eastern edges of Ghent was another specific concern. The presence of the lines might prevent development or expansion in the town, witnesses said.

Part of that proposed route would also pass near a rural water pumping station by the intersection of 310th Street and Lyon County Road 5, said Mike DeSutter of rural Ghent.

DeSutter and other residents of Grandview Township also said they had never been notified of the alternative route near their property, instead finding out about it at a Nov. 17 CapX meeting.

“We’re not getting our questions answered,” DeSutter said.

Scott Ek of the Office of Energy Security said landowner notifications for the alternative route had been dated Sept. 15 and sent out on Sept. 18. The list of landowner names and addresses had also been entered as a public exhibit for the hearing.

Nordland Township Clerk Deb Johnson said she had never received the notification letter either.

“I’ve got records for (township) mailings, and I never received anything with those dates on it, nor as a homeowner in that area have I received anything,” Johnson said. “I have a letter from Oct. 22,” announcing the November public meeting, she said, but nothing with September dates.

Johnson and Luis found the names of Johnson and her husband Kevin Johnson on the mailing list, however.

“I don’t know what to say,” Luis told Johnson. “If the concern is a lack of notice to other people, it is a concern I will take into consideration.”

However, Luis said, concerns about lack of written notice are usually waived if the person who didn’t get the notice appears at public meetings on the subject.

A public meeting on an environmental impact study for the project was held in Marshall Nov. 17. The CapX project would build a 345 kilovolt transmission line running from Brookings, S.D., east to Hampton, Minn. One branch of the line would run north from Marshall to a newly constructed substation near Granite Falls. The PUC accepted a permit application for the project in January.

Maybe Bill Gates had second, third and fourth thoughts about investing in Big Stone II??  Investing in COAL?

Otter Tail Power has withdrawn from the Big Stone II coal plant.

We all know there is no BSII without CapX 2020.  BUT, is there CapX 2020 without Big Stone?

I’ll post more as it turns up.  From Marketwatch:

Otter Tail Power Company Announces Withdrawal From Big Stone II

FERGUS FALLS, Minn., Sep 11, 2009 (GlobeNewswire via COMTEX) — Otter Tail Power Company today announced its withdrawal — both as a participating utility and as the project’s lead developer — from Big Stone II, a 500-to-600-megawatt coal-fired power plant proposed for near Milbank, South Dakota, with related transmission upgrades in South Dakota and Minnesota.

According to Otter Tail Power Company President and CEO Chuck MacFarlane, the broad economic downturn coupled with a high level of uncertainty associated with proposed federal climate legislation and existing federal environmental regulation have resulted in challenging credit and equity markets that make proceeding with Big Stone II at this time untenable for Otter Tail’s customers and shareholders.

MacFarlane explained that Big Stone II contractual agreements require a commitment to proceed after the project receives all major permits, creating a financial obligation on each party that agrees to go forward. “Each Big Stone II participant is in a different position in terms of means and impact of raising capital and mechanisms for recovering those costs from customers,” he said. “Given the legislative and regulatory uncertainties and current economic conditions, Otter Tail Power Company is unwilling to create a binding financial obligation of approximately $400 million for its share of the project at this time.”

Big Stone II had been scheduled to be on line in 2011, and now the plant would not begin operating until late 2015 at the earliest. MacFarlane said that the company no longer could delay the project to obtain greater clarity on — and to mitigate — risks unique to Otter Tail. Accordingly, Otter Tail chose to withdraw and allow the others to proceed. “We believe the project is important for the region, both in terms of adding baseload power and enhancing regional reliability,” MacFarlane said.

While Otter Tail Power Company has invested more than $300 million in wind energy generation during the last three years, MacFarlane added that dispatchable generation remains an important need for Otter Tail Power Company’s customers. As a result, over the next three to six months, Otter Tail Power Company will continue to evaluate other options to meet its customers’ need for reliable electricity.

MacFarlane also expressed his company’s gratitude for the backing shown for the project. “Our company appreciates the support that customers, regulators, labor, business leaders, and political leadership have shown the project. We especially thank South Dakota elected officials and communities within the plant’s vicinity for their commitment,” he said.